Rackspace offers hosting on Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Computerworld - Business customers seeking to run their applications, infrastructures or Web sites on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux server operating system without having to do all the work themselves can now get help from Rackspace Managed Hosting.
In a partnership deal announced yesterday, San Antonio-based Rackspace said it will offer its hosted management services for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux platform starting Aug. 1, extending a relationship with the Raleigh, N.C.-based Linux company that has flourished for about four years.
For both companies, the deal offers a chance to bring in new customers and to upgrade existing ones who want to run their infrastructure on Linux while keeping a hands-off approach to the technologies.
"This is all just part of building the ecosystem on that platform," said Mike Evans, vice president of channel sales and development at Red Hat. "We've seen a lot of interest from customers in the last six months in doing this with the Red Hat Enterprise Linux version."
Business customers are interested in using the managed Linux hosting for their Web sites, storage, applications and databases, Evans said. "It's getting to be more by the day."
For Red Hat, the deal with Rackspace is "yet another distribution channel for customers to expand their Linux usage with hosting rather than in-house," he said.
This marks the first time that Red Hat has partnered directly with a hosting provider to offer hosting packages to the marketplace, Evans said.
Dirk Elmendorf, chief technology evangelist and founder of Rackspace, said his company is moving to Red Hat's Enterprise versions because Red Hat continues to court business customers with new features. Rackspace has been using Red Hat's earlier operating systems for its hosting and is now moving to the new operating systems as Red Hat winds down support for older versions by the end of the year.
About 3,000 businesses now run Linux with help from Rackspace, according to the company.
By moving to hosting on Red Hat's enterprise operating systems, "what we're trying to say is that Red Hat is making this move toward a more business-centric distribution," Elmendorf said. "We support it, and we think it's a great idea."
The new Red Hat Enterprise server versions include longer 18-month cycles for new versions, making it easier for software developers and IT managers to work with the operating systems without frequent major upgrades, he said.
Support will be provided by Rackspace, and Red Hat will provide backup help when needed.
Melanie Posey, a Web hosting analyst at market research firm IDC in Framingham, Mass., said the Red Hat/Rackspace deal will make it easier for many customers to move to Linux. "If they were thinking about Linux but were intimidated by the technical knowledge they'd need, this new offering makes it easier for them to use Linux. It smooths out the Linux upgrade process, and puts it on a playing field with Windows and Solaris."
By using Red Hat's enterprise versions, she said, "it makes the ground more fertile for developers" to create new business applications that can be hosted.
Pricing can range from $270 per month for a single server to $50,000 per month, depending on the requirements.